Sweden has joined NATO

https://www.msn.com/en-us/mone...utrality/ar-BB1jv7DB

Not until they pay up.

Sweden's defense spending is predicted to be 2.1% of GDP for 2024. Sounds like the hit the mark.

Whatever they're spending will be more than Canada...

Welcome brother!

DAVID JONES's report from Nato's new front line...

“Crouched ready for action, their chilblained hands hovering nervously beside holstered pistols, a band of rookie soldiers face down an enemy platoon, awaiting the order to fire.

Volunteers from all sections of Swedish society, aged between 20 and 55, they have just begun a two-week induction course into the Home Guard (the equivalent of Britain’s army reserve). And when the commander’s signal comes, their unreadiness for combat becomes apparent.

As they wrestle with their unfamiliar Glock 17 handguns, there is much fumbling and under-the-breath cursing.

Few shots hit the basin-shaped helmets of the cardboard soldiers at whom they are aiming – an imaginary Russian invasion force presumed to have crossed the narrow Baltic strait from Finland and stormed Sweden’s south-east coast.

A fortnight from now, however, Lieutenant Hakan Adolfsson, one of the officers overseeing the training of these 22 new recruits, at a pine-forested former Cold War army camp in the coastal town of Vaddo, is confident they will be ready for the battlefield.

‘Well, at least in a way that doesn’t make them a safety liability - to themselves or others,’ he smiles wryly. …”

DailyMail article:
https://mol.im/a/13201041

Innever understood how the concept of a militia for self-defense works without the attitude Switzerland used to have about encouraging every citizen to be proficient with arms.

Swedes like poutine too?

quote:

Originally posted by Gustofer:
Swedes like poutine too?

What made you say that?

Thought it was just a Canadian thing.

quote:

Originally posted by smschulz:
Not until they pay up.

They won't pay up, just like all the rest of the NATO countries who don't spend to meet their NATO obligations. They're just counting on uncle sugar to save their ass when the shit hits the fan. They're all the same. If they really cared about their own security they would be building themselves up and combining their plans and exercises.

quote:

Originally posted by wrightd:

quote:

Originally posted by smschulz:
Not until they pay up.

They won't pay up, just like all the rest of the NATO countries who don't spend to meet their NATO obligations.
<snip>

Did you read Artie’s post above?

The Swedes can be tough. Used to have a military draft much more robust than anything US had. Their navy tracks Russian submarines and their air force has fighters. Europe and the US are lucky to have them in NATO. With the US in retreat from its once global presence Sweden stepped up. Russian unrestrained military moves got Swedes to abandon going it alone.